Famous Ukrainian coach and expert Anatoliy Chantsev shared his impressions of the match of the 2nd round of the group stage of Euro-2024 Slovakia - Ukraine (1:2), which took place yesterday in Düsseldorf.
Anatoly Chantsev- Impressions from the victory of our national team are off the charts. All of us were very supportive of the national team and we are happy about the victory. The game was valedictory, making everyone worried. But good is what ends well.
- It is clear that everyone was satisfied with the score. But what about the game?
- To answer this question, I would like to go back to the previous meeting of the blue-and-yellow team with Romania. Even then I noticed: our players do not open behind the backs of the opposing team's defenders. There were no openings at all.
But today with Slovakia - a different matter. Everything was there: the guys opened up, and there was tension in the opponent's penalty area, and passes were made faster, there was more movement. That is, there were a lot of things that we did not see in the game with the Romanians. All this had a significant impact on the game and contributed to our victory.
- There is a reasonable question: what prevented the Ukraine national team to do all this in the game with Romania?
- I ask myself the same question. Before the first match of Serhiy Rebrov's wards I had such an emotional rise in pride for our national team, for our country, that it seemed: well, now we will "tear" them! But during the game I caught myself thinking: why don't our team run forward? They move to the opponent's half of the field - and nobody opens up behind the Romanians' backs!
I repeat: there were no simple elementary openings at all! There were no shots on goal either. And all because they did not reach them. Our team never made positional attacks, so that they could be useful.
You know what I noted for myself? The specifics of the new super tactics, when at the expense of passes we come out of defense, cross the opponent's half of the field - and then what? And then we make transverse passes, passing the ball from left to right and right to left, back and forth - and there was no progress towards the goal! Consequently, there were no shots. Mudryk in the same match twice ran to the front line, tried to make passes into the penalty area, but who would score there? There was no one there.
So I say: positional attacks are not for us. For us it is effective to open up behind the defenders, quick pass and the same transition to the other half of the field. That's what we saw today. The Ukrainian team showed how it should be - and it changed everything in the game radically.
- What do you think about today's changes in the starting lineup, of which there were four?
- It is difficult to say something about the lineup and its reshuffles from the outside, because we do not know the situation inside the team and what the coaching staff sees. It is the prerogative of the head coach to determine which players to put in the starting lineup.
So if Serhiy Rebrov decided to use Trubin, Tymchik, Brazhko and Yarmolenko from the first minutes, it means that he had something to be guided by. If we take the goalkeeper position, no one even doubted the decision to replace Lunin, which Rebrov made.
Frankly speaking, I thought that there would be a change of Shaparenko and Zinchenko, but it did not happen. After today's match I read the leading statistical sites and found out that Zinchenko was the best in the Ukraine national team in the game with Slovakia. And I understand why: he had very accurate passes today, one of which was a goal. So there is nothing surprising.
I think that Brazhko was very good in the supporting zone today, and the change in this position was useful. Trubin, who saved the team more than once, also played well.
Yaremchuk's appearance on the field in the second half was also effective. Frankly speaking, I thought before that he was not so "thin" in the game, as it turned out in the episode with the Slovakian goal.
There was a very difficult and at the same time accurate pass from Shaparenko - and Yaremchuk showed himself as a skillful striker: with his first touch he skillfully stopped the ball, and with the second he quickly pushed it over the goal line past the goalkeeper. Let me put it this way: this is the highest level of soccer, the level of a striker. You see, what changes and substitutions turned out to be! Very good. I applaud Rebrov and the whole team.
- If we assume that Belgium will beat Romania, then before the final round in the group all the opponents will have an equal number of points - three each. In this case, how should the Ukrainians strategically and tactically build the game with Belgium?
- Hm... It's a difficult question. First of all, we need to wait for the result of the match between Belgium and Romania. I will also return to what I said above. Everything before our game with the Belgians will depend on what atmosphere will be in the team, how the players will recover after today's match, what will be the readiness for the next decisive match and how ready to play Mikolenko - a player whose role in the defense for the national team is very important.
It's not for me to give predictions. The only thing that can be predicted is that in psychological terms after today's game the Ukraine national team will go to the match with Belgium in a completely different mood than it was after the game with Romania. This is unequivocal. And I want to say one more thing. Before the first match, with Romania, our players were publicized as much as they could! I have heard and read many times that the current Ukraine national team is the best in terms of composition since independence. And the guys probably thought: maybe we are really so irreplaceable. This could have played a cruel joke on them. But today they proved that we have a good national team. Glory to Ukraine and the AFU!
Vyacheslav Kulchitsky
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